


Dirge Without Music

by Skoll



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief, absolutely spoils the last episode friends please read with care, takes place during episode 1.12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kala first began to understand what was happening to her -- to all of them -- she thought that perhaps it might be a comfort, having so many others with you in a time of grief.  Who hasn't wished for someone who could understand your pain without ever needing to ask, after all?  And Kala is blessed enough to have seven such someones.</p><p>She never considered how it might feel, if her cluster was the source of her grief, rather than her comfort.</p><p>(Or: Kala and the other sensates cope with That One Moment I'm Trying Not to Spoil in My Summary that happens at the end of episode 12.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dirge Without Music

**Author's Note:**

> So I just finished the last episode of sense8, and man did I find myself wanting to see how all the other sensates dealt with the feeling of losing Riley and Will. This is something I typed up super quickly, just to try and get a handle on all the characters. That said, I hope you like it.
> 
> (Also: I am a super white Jewish American. I mean no disrespect, but I'm totally capable of messing up. If something I wrote here is wrong, given that I was writing from Kala's perspective, please please let me know so I can take that part out.)

It is no easy thing, to lose one of your cluster. 

The only thing Kala can begin to compare it to is an earthquake: one moment she stands on steady ground, as sure of the still earth beneath her as she is of her next breath, and the next she is stumbling, and the ground she had come to depend upon is shaking beneath her. Something is...is missing, lost, torn away. More than shaken, she feels hollowed out.

She's ashamed to admit it, but her first thought is a desperate _Wolfgang!_

But no, he's not the one she's lost—she can feel him, the sharp, clean feel of him in her mind. She can feel the tug of him, catching just at the center of her chest and _pulling_ taut and, now for the first time, painful. Wolfgang is with her, as he always is. If she turned, maybe she would see him here, standing with his back pressed to the pharmacy counter.

No, he's not the one. _Will_. Will and Riley, just, just gone, just like that. Kala reaches out, trying to find them, and all she finds is...pain? Memory? And cold. Like the chill of Wolfgang's German rain has swallowed them both whole.

_(“Kala?” One of her friends is saying. Kala can feel a hand on her arm, and her own hand pressed up against the pharmacy counter, as though she has caught herself against it. Did she fall? It all feels so distant, even as Ria looks her in the face, frightened. She cannot quite make herself feel it.)_

Will. Her kind protector, their good man. Gone. She remembers her words with Rajan's mother, _Tell Ganesha he is a good man_. She is not at the temple, she has nothing to pledge, but _Lord Ganesha, Will is our good man, please, please bring him home. Please bring Riley home to us. I know you're very busy, but if you have ever listened, please listen to me now, please—_

_(“Kala, you're scaring me,” Ria says._

_“I think I should sit down,” Kala says. Her mouth moves but she barely hears the words. It all feels like a bad dream.)_

What will she do without them? She feels the others, as close to her as they have ever been. Will it be enough? Will any of them ever be enough again?

Without thought, Kala reaches out her hand, and a strong hand takes hers in return, and clings. She stands in San Francisco and feels how Nomi worries, quiet and tense, like a bowstring ready to fire. “What color were his eyes?” Kala says. The words taste salty—she's crying, or Nomi is. Maybe they all are. “I don't—I can't remember, Nomi.”

Nomi holds her hand tighter, and shakes her head. “I never—” she starts. Her voice is shaking. “When we're together, I know. Now—”

They stand together, at a pharmacy counter in Mumbai, and Capheus reaches out and takes her other hand. “Brown.” Kala looks up at him, at his strong face creased with smile lines, and he looks back at her with serious eyes. His voice, though, doesn't shake. “As Riley's are. Have faith, my sisters. They will come back.”

They stand, together and apart, and Kala feels them all. She can do nothing else. There is Lito, just at the edge of Nomi—she can hear them speaking without really hearing, like murmurs in another room. Lito is afraid, afraid for all of them; she can feel the way he longs for Wolfgang steady and dangerous at his back. Kala pretends she cannot understand that desire.

But Wolfgang is far away, at the very edges of the web spun between them. Kala can feel him, pacing the boundaries like a hungry dog, shadowing Sun's quiet, determined movements. Together, all rage and desperation, they search: two of their warriors, aching from the inaction, fighting against the wall of silence that has severed Will and Riley away from them. Kala doesn't know how they can stand being so close to that aching nothing; it is hard enough here, surrounded by her cluster, all lost together.

_(“Kala! Kala!”)_

There, so very alone, she waits for Will and Riley to come back. 

She can't do anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far and enjoyed, please do leave me a comment. I'm just dipping my toes in here; feedback would be really appreciated, to tell if I'm headed in the right direction.


End file.
